DLRAS Chapter 24

Chapter 24: Did something sad cross your mind?

When Huo Niansheng walked over, this was the scene he saw—

Chen Wengang stood beneath a famous figure’s statue, surrounded by a group of young students, smiling and talking with them. A black-and-tan German Shepherd ran circles around them, while the leash across its chest and back was held by a middle-aged woman.

Those younger students were actually observing Huo Niansheng too, secretly asking Chen Wengang what his friend did for a living.

A quarter of an hour earlier, Huo Niansheng had suddenly called and asked whether Chen Wengang was at school.

“I am,” Chen Wengang said. “Are you looking for me?”

“I’m at your university gate.”

“Which gate? I’ll come find you now.”

“No need. Just send me your location.”

That day, Huo Niansheng was wearing a Scottish check tweed jacket suit. It was not too formal, but still gentlemanly—mature yet relaxed. Because of the heat, he had taken off the jacket and draped it over his arm, his shirt sleeves rolled halfway up, giving him a naturally dashing and capable air.

There was nothing about his maturity or presence that had anything to do with the word “student.” Yet calling him faculty would make him seem far too charming and romantic for that too.

Chen Wengang smiled and shooed the others along. “Alright, alright, time to do some actual work. Pet the dog if you want, but don’t forget to open up for business.”

“Ehh—” The younger students immediately started hooting. “Senior, you’re hiding things from us. That definitely means something’s suspicious.”

As someone frequently gossiped about in entertainment magazines, Huo Niansheng was obviously quite used to being the center of attention.

He walked over without the slightest awkwardness and greeted everyone warmly.

It really was about time. The students all ran off to staff the activity room, and the dog was led by its owner into the little woods behind to play.

Only then did Chen Wengang turn back to face him, letting Huo Niansheng’s eyes scan him up and down.

Then he laughed softly and, in a steady low voice, said, “Still thinking about when you might have known me in a past life?”

Huo Niansheng looked regretful. “Not remembering is my loss. Give me a little time. I’ll think about it slowly.”

“Alright.” Chen Wengang smiled, then asked, “Did you come here today because you had something to do, or…?”

“I was passing by. Then I remembered Baoqiu saying you’d been at school a lot lately, so I thought I’d ask and try my luck.” Leaning against the base of the statue, Huo Niansheng folded his arms and smiled as he spoke. “Have you been especially busy lately? I had her ask you out a few times, and every time she said you didn’t have time.”

Busy as he was, Chen Wengang had not known anything at all about the invitations Huo Niansheng was referring to.

On second thought, he understood at once—Zheng Baoqiu had warned him to guard against Huo Niansheng, and apparently she had been guarding him quite thoroughly too.

But then, if Huo Niansheng truly wanted to find him, was it possible he did not have Chen Wengang’s contact information? Most likely he had only mentioned it casually.

He exposed neither of them. “I have been a little busy.”

Huo Niansheng asked, “Busy doing what exactly?”

Since the man was already standing in front of him, Chen Wengang simply took him to the student activity center to have a look.

The moment they entered the activity classroom, it was still the same group of younger students from before. They laughed and said they were meeting again, while their eyes flicked meaningfully between the two men.

The classroom was divided into two sections.

Near the entrance were two tables, and on the wall hung three striking characters: “Donation Station.” The door had flashy promotional posters stuck on it, and beside the desk stood a display board introducing the details of the event and the donation process.

The books already in storage were packed densely in the inner section. Several makeshift shelves had been assembled from bricks and wooden planks, with labels like “History,” “Literature,” and “General Studies.” Between each row of shelves, uniform gaps had been left to create passageways for small carts.

Huo Niansheng praised them. “I didn’t expect you all to have done such a proper job.”

He said it to the students present, but his eyes did not turn toward Chen Wengang.

He seemed very skilled at controlling a tone like that—neither so formal that it felt fake, nor so teasing that it felt frivolous.

And since this visitor looked like someone of considerable status, the young students responded very well to it and felt greatly encouraged.

One eager student worker enthusiastically explained things, then added, “Actually, we made some jokes out of it at the beginning. Nobody had any experience, so we naturally thought to line all the books up against the wall. But then it really became a wall of books, and that wall turned into a mountain of books. People couldn’t get in, and the books couldn’t get out.”

Another one gestured as they spoke. “Later, Senior led a few of the boys in staying up late to reorganize the whole thing. He replanned the space so that the entry and exit routes would follow one direction, and the shelves had to have aisles between them. Doesn’t it look much better now?”

Huo Niansheng listened seriously, hands in his pockets as he looked around the classroom, seeming to imagine that grand and ridiculous earlier sight.

While they were talking, someone knocked on the activity room door and asked whether they could donate a book—but they only had one.

A junior staff member went over to inspect it, took one look, then turned around and called for Chen Wengang.

“Senior, could you come look at this? What should we do with this one?”

At the sound, Chen Wengang walked over.

In her hands was a gilt-lettered, velvet-covered volume titled Selected Poems of Tagore.

It was a thick book, finely bound, with excellent printing and paper. One could tell it had been well cared for and was still nearly new—except that the title page had been stained across a large area with ink. It was probably from a fountain pen leak or something similar. The black ink had soaked through the title page and even reached the contents page after it.

The owner of the book was a student from the craft design department, and explained, “I’m not a graduating student. This was actually a design assignment of mine. But one slip of the hand and… well, you can see what happened. If you don’t want it, that’s fine. I’ll just take it back and throw it away.”

This level of staining did not affect reading. It was only deeply regrettable, because one could tell a great deal of effort had gone into it originally.

A flawless white jade marred by a crack—that kind of regret seemed to be something very few people in this world could accept calmly.

The more beautiful the thing, the more infuriating even the smallest break in it became.

If that was true of objects, how could it not be true of people?

The student scratched his head. “If I really throw it away, I can’t quite bear it. But if I keep it myself, I’ll just feel upset every time I look at it. If there’s really no way, then forget it.”

Chen Wengang set the book down on the table and gently stroked its cover. In the end he still said, “Let me think of something first.”

The owner of the book happily agreed, as if the book had found a home. Relieved that he did not have to destroy his own hard work with his own hands, he left feeling much lighter.

With this rescued book of poems in hand, Chen Wengang and Huo Niansheng followed one after the other out of the building.

Chen Wengang had not brought a bag, so he tucked the book under his arm. The four sharp corners of the hardcover kept bumping against Huo Niansheng’s arm as they walked, until Huo Niansheng simply took it from him and carried it himself, opening the cover as he examined it. “So what exactly are you planning to do for it? Perform surgery?”

Chen Wengang laughed. “What possible way is there? I’ll take it to the welfare home I know best, explain the situation, and if the director doesn’t mind, I’ll donate it to them. If she does mind, then I think it’s still very beautifully made, so I’ll just keep it myself.”

“If that’s the case, then don’t go to all that trouble. Why not let me take it as a memento?”

“A memento of what?”

Huo Niansheng leaned closer. “I’ve given you so many things. Is it too much to ask for one return gift?”

Chen Wengang glanced at him, lips curving. “Isn’t that a little too shabby? This was something someone else didn’t want anymore and was planning to throw away.”

But Huo Niansheng said, “That’s alright. Once he gave it to you, it became yours. Now you have the right to decide to give it to me.”

His black Rolls-Royce was parked quietly in its spot—but its existence itself was flamboyant.

The cars on both sides had arrived later and, in perfect tacit agreement, had left a wide empty space around it.

Huo Niansheng unlocked it and bent down to put the book into the storage compartment.

When he shut the door and turned back around, however, there was suddenly a little square box in his hand as if by magic. He tossed it to Chen Wengang. “That little thing from last time. I happened to have it with me today. I should have given it to you earlier.”

The pocket watch that had cost seven million at auction was just thrown over that casually.

Chen Wengang opened it and looked inside.

On the enamel dial, Romeo and Juliet were still gazing at one another across the distance, the whole thing carrying a classical, polished beauty like an operatic aria.

He truly could no longer tell whether this was the same “love watch” his father had once given his mother. He had been too young when he had first seen it.

But whether it was or not, in every sense this was something worthy of being cherished.

Huo Niansheng leaned against the car door, the corners of his mouth suggesting a smile.

Chen Wengang looked up. “Thank you.”

He smiled too, then tested the waters by asking, “Are you going back?”

Huo Niansheng leaned toward him, amused. “What, now that you’ve gotten what you wanted, you’re chasing me away?”

Chen Wengang stepped closer, closing the distance between them even more. “That’s not what I mean. What do you want to do? I’ll keep you company.”

Naturally, one of Huo Niansheng’s arms came to rest over his shoulder. “Then just walk me around the campus for a while.”

Jincheng University was a century-old prestigious school, and there were never any shortage of visitors who came specifically to tour it, taking reverent photos beneath the gold-lettered school sign at the gate, as if that alone meant they had brushed the doorway of a hall of knowledge and wisdom.

Huo Niansheng had none of that reverence. He only idly admired the old buildings lining the roads.

The campus lay against the slope of a mountain and had originally been built by missionaries from abroad. The older teaching buildings were mostly in Western style, with white walls and a canopy of green trees rising to the sky. Viewed from above, the deep green framed the solemn white, and beneath the clear breeze and bright daylight it made a scene of its own.

The two walked side by side, free and unhurried, wandering wherever they happened to feel like.

“That’s the library?”

“Yes. It was renovated last year.”

“And down below?”

“The school history museum.”

After touring the school history museum and coming back out, Huo Niansheng said with feeling, “I’m a native son of Jincheng, yet I’ve barely been here a few times.”

Chen Wengang still held the little box in his hand and asked, “Baoqiu said you studied abroad from middle school through university?”

“Studied what? It was just gilding the résumé.” Huo Niansheng gave a self-mocking laugh. “I didn’t seriously listen in more than a handful of classes. I drove sports cars, went clubbing. The overseas students over there were all like me. What kind of studying is that? Someone like you is the real top student raised in an ivory tower.”

Chen Wengang did not comment. Instead, he gently told Huo Niansheng about himself.

“When I was little, my father drove for my godfather. He saw that other people were buying education funds for their children, so he bought one for me too. When he came home, he told me to study hard, so that in the future I’d at least never have to worry about food or clothing.”

His father had loved his son, but also wanted him to amount to something. After being flattered by an insurance manager, he bought a policy with a very high amount. Although his father could no longer see it now, over the past ten-plus years, the effort he made had indeed been rewarded.

Ever since being admitted to university, Chen Wengang had begun receiving yearly dividends from it. Because he attended a famous school, there had even been an extra substantial reward.

Huo Niansheng smiled as if genuinely happy for him. “Now that you have money, what do you want to do?”

Chen Wengang said, “I haven’t figured it out yet. But I should thank him for giving me the confidence to do what I want.”

Though Huo Niansheng’s arm still rested naturally around him, he did not ask what exactly it was that Chen Wengang wanted to do.

Instead, they drifted into lighter conversation.

Passing Lover’s Slope, full of blooming Chinese roses, and the rippling artificial lake, they came upon a Bauhaus-style building tucked under the shade of trees, with a distinctly more modern style than the others. Chen Wengang pointed it out to Huo Niansheng—that was the exhibition hall belonging to their university’s School of Art.

Since it was the season for the graduating students’ art show, students were constantly coming and going.

And since they were already there, there did not seem to be any reason not to go in and have a look.

The exhibition hall was minimalist in style, bright and open, with tall white walls stretching from floor to ceiling, making the whole space feel vast and airy.

Chen Wengang had been here several times before, but this was still his first time seeing this year’s graduation design exhibition.

The area nearest the entrance belonged to the oil painting department, and Huo Niansheng strolled through it with great interest, viewing one painting after another.

When he turned his head, he found Chen Wengang studying one of the paintings on the wall as well.

Chen Wengang had tipped his face slightly upward. On the wall beside him hung an enormous framed work, a great mass of intense, vivid abstract color. Standing so close, Chen Wengang’s upper body seemed almost embedded in the painting. His skin was clean and fair, and the collision of heat and stillness fused into something dazzling to an extreme.

In Huo Niansheng’s eyes, he was that magnificent and forbidden work of art.

And among the many base thoughts that flashed through him, there was one he could not deny:

He wanted to make this piece of art his own.

Chen Wengang turned away, unaware of the gaze behind him.

Focused now on the next piece, he followed the exhibition path and, without noticing, gradually opened the distance between himself and Huo Niansheng as he moved farther inside.

Beyond that were the calligraphy department, sculpture, fashion design, and environmental design.

The works took every imaginable form, with creativity far beyond ordinary expectation. Among them were more than a few astonishing pieces. It was obvious that these future masters of art were all showing off their talents, trying to paint the final, vivid stroke onto their university years.

At the deepest part of the exhibition hall stood a work modeled after an ancient Greek-style sculpted head.

The white plaster head had deeply carved lines, stern and handsome like Apollo himself, yet completely lifeless because it had no pupils.

More precisely, it was a complete installation piece.

The plaster head was submerged inside a transparent cylinder of matching diameter. The sealed container was filled with a clear liquid, and within it another strikingly scarlet liquid flowed and circulated in a sharply separated stream.

The two liquids wrapped around one another without ever invading, forming a bizarre dynamic balance.

It made the head immersed in the vessel seem as though it were bleeding endlessly.

And the blood-filled vessel containing the head was being cradled by two plaster hands. Those white hands seemed to extend out from the void, holding what they loved most tightly against an invisible chest.

The restless red was wild, unnerving, and somehow beautiful. The whole installation radiated a shocking kind of aesthetic force.

Art was infectious.

Chen Wengang stood there gazing at it for quite a while.

His eyes reflected that thick crimson, yet there was no telling what he was thinking.

Other students came and went in passing, but he seemed not to notice any of them.

Not until Huo Niansheng appeared behind him. “You’re looking at this—what is it?”

Startled, Chen Wengang shook his head to indicate that he did not know.

He bent down to read the label on the base.

The title of the work was The Lover’s Head.

As it happened, the creator of the piece was nearby. The long-haired boy in ripped jeans had specifically brought a friend to see it, but the friend was timid and judged it to be “a little creepy,” which left the boy looking disappointed because the other person clearly did not understand how to appreciate it.

Then Huo Niansheng cut in with a question. “Does this title have some special meaning?”

The boy instantly brightened. He was delighted that a stranger was actually thinking seriously about his work.

He launched into an explanation. “The so-called lover’s head is actually a classic image in literature and art. For example, in the novel The Red and the Black, Julien—ambitious, desperate to climb upward, but ultimately toyed with by fate—is sentenced to death. After he dies, Mathilde, who loves him deeply, personally buries his head and embraces it as she says farewell. Or take Oscar Wilde’s Salome: Salome confesses her love to John the Baptist and is ruthlessly rejected. She swears that she will kiss his lips no matter what, and to do so she even performs the Dance of the Seven Veils to seduce her stepfather Herod into cutting off John’s head. At last she holds his head in her arms and has her wish fulfilled.”

“But my most direct source of inspiration was actually this line from Roses and Wine by the Middle Eastern poet Zangi Bukhari—”

The boy crouched excitedly and pointed out that there was a line of tiny script beneath the label:

“If the head does not roll to the beloved’s feet, it is merely a burden upon the shoulders.”

“So there’s really quite a lot of meaning in it,” Huo Niansheng said, as though humbly seeking instruction. “And how should that line be understood?”

“Taken literally…” the boy said, “it means a person’s head should fall for the beloved, should roll to the beloved’s feet, otherwise life itself has no meaning, and he is only a coward carrying a head on his shoulders. The head symbolizes life, so what the poet is actually expressing is a burning view of love—true love means being willing to let one’s head fall, to offer up one’s life to the beloved without regret.”

“I see.”

“Exactly! That’s why I believe only death is worthy of the most extreme kind of love. Only in the moment when you hold your beloved’s head in your arms does love become something elevated into an eternal thing that will never wither again. Death here is a metaphor for immortality and happiness.”

The future artist poured out words in a torrent, so fluently and by heart it sounded as though he had rehearsed this graduation defense countless times.

Unfortunately, time was limited. Before he could finish, his friend turned back and dragged him away, and he had to part reluctantly from his unexpected audience.

Once the irrelevant people were gone, the space grew quiet again.

Huo Niansheng touched Chen Wengang’s arm.

Chen Wengang seemed to wake as though from a dream.

Then he heard Huo Niansheng ask, “Why are you crying?”

Chen Wengang looked back at him in mild surprise.

At first, he had not understood what Huo Niansheng meant by that question. Instinctively he blinked once, and something cool slid down his right cheek. Only then did he realize that it really was a tear.

But he had not actually been crying. It was only this one single tear.

Chen Wengang was stumped. Even he himself had no way to explain it.

Huo Niansheng lifted a hand and used his thumb to wipe the dampness from his face. “Did it make you think of something sad?”

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